Why Atmos?

I suspect this whole Atmos push is what it’s always been with a new format: the chance for record labels to get new copyright on back catalog releases, especially something which they may soon be losing their original copyright to. I really think that’s it. I don’t think music will be delivered in this format in like 5 years… games/movies? Sure. We’ll see.

Intersting conversational reply to Josh seawell / @sewell on the subject here:

The difference is other than the speakers/ amplification the buy in of adoption Atmos on the production side is tiny compared to all the others. Dolby hardware was always insanely priced.

What I want to see is someone do a comparison of headphones at both ends compared to say a K70 based system and let us know if there are any strange phase based idiosyncrasies we need to be warned about. As headphone listening becomes the consumer norm and if we are going to use a DSP algorithm to emulate 9 speakers we are going to find ourselves using the phone a lot more during mix.

In the general line of ATMOS-RELATED thought...
Apple Vision Pro.
This is going to change things and not for the better. This is all part of the globalization plan to placate humanity and confine it to a 15 minute range and make the prison more comfortable than actual reality.


AND AS I STATED ELSEWHERE . . .
I hope there are Atmos mixes of symphonic concert presentations, that have people behind you coughing and people to the right whispering . . . and oops, a Wasp got in and starts buzzing around and someone screams and then it goes to attack the concert master and she shrieks at drops her Stradivarius but the conductor lunges at it and saves the day and the audience cheers and after about 5 minutes, everyone quiets down and the conductor taps the lectern and loudly demands "Now, where were we?"

Maybe then Atmos will catch on, and oh, it has to change every time . . . maybe Apple's vision will include that? Live streams of totally immersive virtual experiences.

Will that placate the masses and help them enjoy their 15 minute prisons... er, I mean cities?

(I know, I know . . . I'm getting another infraction now)

Yes. The trick, I'd say, is ensuring the song sounds successfully musical on the phone, without the bass you get on fuller range speakers. 

Phones have gotten good enough that I can enjoy well recorded music on them. I usually look for a corner to place the phone for some horn type LF augmentation. 

As for Augmented reality, I guess it's coming. But I can't see everyone wearing headset goggles, like people looking down on their phones today. I could be wrong. In the '70's I thought drum machines in pop music would never catch on and replace real drummers. 

I do think Apple is behind in AI, if Vision Pro is just to nav your iOS apps. With AI, the need for apps is obsolete. 

Was testing some subs this weekend that with EQ are -3dB at 35 hz, guy walks by with a pair of fancy overpriced generic headphones. “Man I can’t believe how you can feel the Bass.”
Really wanted to take him up stairs and show him what -3 at 18Hz is like.

I replied to Josh's excellent video as well as Barry's. If the labels are trying to force a one-sided deal on studios, artists, and consumers, then Atmos in music is a house of cards. Seems like they started out paying well for the mixes and now are cheaping out bigtime. Planned obsolescence is an outdated business model. People didn't stop being fans of things from the 80's after 1992. The companies just stopped making the products and decided they were gonna force everyone to buy new music and other pop culture-related stuff. In our modern era we have a more level playing field and it's a lot of the classic bands that are the most popular. Video games inspired by the 1980's tech are among the biggest sellers at times. The consumer needs a reason to adopt something new, especially now. I've never seen a big advertising blitz for Atmos. They'd need to do that plus make it cheap to adopt. This reminds me of stuff like Waves trying to go subscription only. Or when the movie studios got greedy with 3D blu-ray and charged $30 for a lot of movies with substandard transfers. Sounds like they're rushing studios to make Atmos mixes without giving them time to learn the system from what I saw in the videos.

Seems to me that it would be extremely risky for someone to invest 50-100k in an Atmos setup. You've already got a public that's conditioned to think music should be free. Are they going to start paying for subscriptions in droves? If the labels were smart, they'd make a deal to include some free Atmos device with phone purchases or find a way to make it work on new model phones. Then throw in some 90-day free streaming subscription. Let people buy Atmos downloads. People are obsessed with phones. If they can tie it into phones and make it blow away the stereo and mono listening experiences, they might just win over the general public.

I doubt that they will be that generous though. Historically it seems like labels have almost always tried to force one-sided deals on everyone. They'll do some tone deaf nonsense and the house of cards will collapse and a lot of studios will owe the leasing companies that work with places like Sweetwater and VK thousands a month for now almost useless Atmos rigs. Something better and cheaper could come along to replace Atmos very quickly too. Even if the industry tried to block out competition, someone could come up with something that provides a superior result by transforming stereo files people already have. Who knows. The future brings a lot of possibilities. Tech is going to change faster the more time passes and it can be tough to forecast exactly when something may be displaced. If an Atmos failure could cost you your business, then an Atmos rig only makes sense if you've seen enough evidence to suggest that you can pay off the cost and get your return on investment fairly quickly. Maybe even that's a bad idea if the labels are already demanding free Atmos mixes when paying for stereo.

The additional revenue for creatives arguably will come from an uptick in streams/ downloads because everyone will want to show off their new Atmos Soundbar/ iPhone/ car stereo, and the streamers will spotlight push those who adopt.

Are there even a lot of serious music listeners left outside audiophiles who spend thousands on their systems? By serious, I mean the types who would be early adopters of something like Atmos. Napster just really changed the way people viewed music almost overnight. At the time, I never thought anyone would want a bunch of 128 mp3s over an actual cd with lossless audio and a booklet. To say I was extremely surprised when so many people just loaded up zip disks or whatever with mp3s would be an understatement. The cd format was revered when it was prohibitively expensive for people and even in 1998 it still had a lot of respect. It would not surprise me if something like 80% of people now listen primarily on their phone's mono speaker and then with some lossy source on top of that. It might even be as high as 90%. The incident at the concert that Josh talks about in his video was surprising but at the same time not surprising. Nowadays people will pay to see lip synching and people who can barely talk up there trying to do lead vocals. Most people seem to care about music as a means to facilitate their social lives. Give themselves things to post about on Facebook and IG.

The record companies need to get a read on what the market wants and try to communicate to them why Atmos fits into that. Make it something trendy for them to brag about on social media. Tying it in with phones does that. "Hey everyone, check out my new Atmos toy that came with my IPhone 15". I often wonder if a lot of people who run big companies have some form of anti-social personality disorder because they have these predator mindsets and can never seem to empathize with the markets that they're trying to reach. Like in the book Snakes In Suits. To me, successful selling is all about communicating the benefits to the market in a way where they understand that everyone wins. So far, I have seen about zero communication as to why Atmos is of any benefit to me. Tidal sure didn't explain anything about it when I belonged to it. "Machinery of Torment" from Metal Lords sucked in Atmos and there was no stereo version available. If that's going to be typical for someone's Atmos experience, these streaming services are going to lose people because of it.

Anyone know if Best Buy or any stores are promoting Atmos? I'd walk into these Magnolia sections to look at the headphones and whatever else and the employees knew next to nothing while the displays were full of broken stuff. Atmos isn't going to sell itself and they're going to need a well-oiled retail operation at major places to get the word out. I haven't seen anything at any stores I frequent. Apple Music's main page doesn't highlight Atmos. There's something about "spatial audio". Then on Young Thug's pic it says "Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos". I click on that and a list of songs come up. No info as to why I would want spatial audio. Atmos is not printed on the albums in the spatial audio section of the home page. The genre card has the genre name in a huge font. Spatial Audio the next biggest, but much smaller than the genre name. Dolby is readable and then Atmos is in such tiny font that you could easily miss it. It's giving off the impression that it must not be very important.

Apple doesn't even list a subscription information section on the Apple Music homepage. It'd be really simple to put an Atmos banner or whatever at the top and put some enticing thing on it. Then communicate what it costs. Communicate the benefit and make it seem like a great deal for an extra $5-$10 a month. Offer a free month just to try Atmos. Instead I have to go onto Google to find out how much the service costs. The only reason I signed up for Tidal is because someone else I know wanted to hear the wrestling music on it and it was free for a month. I had no idea they even had lossless or 24-bit audio. The industry might've already dropped the ball with Atmos. It might be too late to create demand for it. But since Atmos's brand awareness is so low, there's still plenty of people who could be persuaded to buy into it. Guess we'll see if they course correct before they hit the proverbial iceberg.

With the introduction of a new format we have to think like the consumer not the producer. As producer we see the minimum value of music as streaming rates, but the post Napster consumer think it’s free and that their monthly streaming fee is more about the cost to curate the library ( hey Taylor is charging how much per seat, actual statement of a millennial).  The chances that rates are going to go up are minimumal so the only other way to increase revenue is more streams. That sound mean? Hey I have had to deal with reduced commission and had to eat price increases over the years so I have been there as well and the solution was always move more stuff. Now if the consumer see’s value in ATMOS and remember the largest profitable producers of Consumer Electronics are also in the content business, you are going to see cross promotion ( plus they all have big investments in Video and Film where ATMOS will really rule except there is a writer’s strike limiting new content in the pipeline) there will be demand for well produced ATMOS content.
Now add in all the Apple CarPlay systems that at some point will probably have a Mobile ATMOS free update.
Apple is going to drive this thing and while the streaming uptick might not completely cover the investment, depending on how much the consumer adopts Immersive Audio (this is really going to come down to Headphone, auto and cheap sound bar/ subs) the consumer might decide they no longer desire non immersive content ( cue the original Mono mixes of Good Vibrations and a Young Man has Fallen).
So who wants to take the chance that their Streams fall?

Your absolutely right but the real question isn’t more streams it’s is it going to be less. I have stated before my biggest questions and fears are actually inconsistent translation between different headphones and sound bars.